It’s time for another check-in on the Rural Studio Fabrication Pavilion. We have been working on column repairs, construction plans, and new structural ideas. In addition, we’ve been reevaluating our goals for weather screens on campus. This polycarbonate is Fire(house)Hands-down, a great day!Putting it in storageColumn Construction In the last month, we replaced the splice plates on the final sets of columns. With the help of the CLT Core House team and the 3rd-years, we were able to transport and disassemble the excess scaffolding. Now the slab is clear for the next phase of the renovation ..read more

Welcome back to the CLT Core House team blog! It has been a busy month filled with details and deliberation. As the title suggests, we have been focused on our footing design, particularly on the connection of our heavy and bulky CLT core to our concrete slab. We wish it were as simple as just “screwin’ er’ down.” However, because the slab will be on grade at ground level, we’ve found it difficult to design the right detail. We have worked through many kinds of solutions, all of which we eventually dropped for either being too complicated or too messy. While working through footing details ..read more

Spring has sprung on the 18×18 House site! And with the grass, flowers, and leaves on the trees, new things are springing up inside the house too… After installing their Pella windows at the start of this semester, the team kept moving with mechanical, electrical, and plumbing rough-ins. That means pipes and wires! First up were the drain, waste, and ventilation pipes. The PVC had to be cut and fit together, leveled to slope downwards everywhere, and then taken apart to be glued BACK together. It took some trial and error, but Julie was on top of it. After drain pipes were glued and checked f ..read more

Welcome to our recap of the 2024 Habitat for Humanity Affiliate Conference, a gathering that epitomized collaboration, innovation, and community empowerment. Held in the vibrant city of Atlanta, GA, between March 4-7, this event brought together over 2,000 passionate individuals dedicated to the efforts of housing affordability. With an extensive offering of more than 150 workshops, the Front Porch team along with our partners had the opportunity to lead panels and present in sessions on diverse topics influencing the future of housing initiatives. Proudly sponsoring at the Bronze Hammer level ..read more

Newbies in Newbern The Spring 2024 3rd-year students found their way to Newbern, and for Rural Studio’s own 30th Anniversary year! These past few weeks have been filled with many firsts for this group. They learned quite a lot already about putting things together and have been thrown into Rural Studio history with the traditional first-week Project Tour! Checking out the new wastewater system! During their first week in Hale County, the newbies discovered trivia at The Stable and weren’t doing too well, stuck in last place throughout the whole night with 53 points. Then came the final round ..read more

We’re back! It’s our first blog post of the new year. We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday break—the Fabrication Pavilion team surely did. We spent our break scattered across Alabama and Texas, but we made time to be together as well to see Christmas lights, visit aquariums, and go to festivals. Bathed in cerulean, observing the aquatic lifeSleighing while seeing the Christmas lights!What a cool ButterGUYFlyin’ HighExploring the pollinator garden bridge Now it is time to ring in the new year with models, repairs, and lots of new screen ideas! Small-Scale Model Making We started off the sem ..read more

It has been a long road of many crumpled sheets and drafted lines. Every week, it feels like we tell our classmates, “We finally have a plan.” As in a house floor plan. How silly we were. Many iterations felt so close, seeming to be just out of reach. If only we pushed one more week, we told ourselves, surely it would work! Alas, our continual effort never seemed to reach that coveted goal. That is one of the great benefits of being at Rural Studio. We have the luxury of time, and great help from teachers and visitors alike, to help us realize when we aren’t hitting the mark. Sometimes it is ..read more

The Front Porch Initiative team had a busy 2023. Over the course of the year, we provided technical assistance to twelve partners in six states incorporating climate-resilience and energy-efficiency in Rural Studio housing prototypes. At the close of 2023, Front Porch Initiative housing partners had ten houses in development, six housing units under construction, and six homes completed. While recent blog posts shared the home dedications for Habitat for Humanity of Greenville County (SC) and Community Housing Corp of Madison County (NC), the team also celebrated the completion of another four ..read more

Hi everyone and welcome back to the newest edition of the Rural Studio Bathhouse blog! We hope that everyone had a happy holiday season and is having a great new year so far. It has been a very busy month for the Bathhouse team. We are excited to share what we are up to. Team in PVC form In studio over the past month, we have had some really extraordinary reviewers. Two that we have spoken to are Andrew Berman from New York City and our good friend Marlon Blackwell from Arkansas. They have both helped tremendously with the treatment of spaces and materiality on the interior of the Bathhouse! M ..read more

The CLT Core House team dresses as “Three Men and a Truck” for Halloween! Welcome back to the CLT Core House team blog! Things have been moving quickly in the last month. We have been working hard to push our project forward, clarifying the ideas and how we present them. It has been challenging to better define the project; the possibilities are endless! We are learning how to push forward to find the right solutions. The team presents to de Leon and Primmer!A Zoom with Joe Burnsde Leon and Primmer draw with the teamThe team presents drawings to Billie Tsien Our goal for this semester was to d ..read more